Obscenity just 50 years ago!
I love Jeanne Moreau. She has always taken the road less traveled in her actrice choices and she has remarkably aged well with no (or perhaps minor – I don’t know) surgery allowing her faces to truly reflect wisdom, age and grace all at once. Also I adore her raspy voice.
I saw The Lovers a few months ago and it has kept me thnking. The story is ageless: she is a married women who lives in the countryside. She visits her best friend in Paris regularly and takes a polo player as a lover there. Now this lover’s purpose is really to get her out of her routine life and perhaps to allow her to be more coquette than with her rather workaholic and severe husband. Now the husband has some suspicion and invites the BFF and this gentleman for a week-end. Now the story starts : Jeanne Moreau meets a young and handsome man as her car breaks leaving her late for her guests on the side of the road. She invites the young man to join them…. the night that folllows is mesmerizing and I will let you discover it.
The movie was forbidden in the United States and the viewing of the movie was convicted for depiction of obcene material. The case went to Supreme court where a judge would allow it’s viewing after agreeing that he could recognize obscenity ”
I know it when I see it. What is obscene is that rarely -and mostly never at the time- has a woman been filmed making love with such abandonment, the mix of pleasure, tenderness and passion. Her enjoyement in the arms of her lover can be felt.
Beyond this, the movie is still relevant today for it brigs to light the constant dilemna of married women and the action that would follow such a discovery of love. Would you, could you leave a married life after a night of passion to follow desire & sensuality…. is she doing the right thing following a man she barely knows, for pure physical sensation, the discovery of oneself through the organism… can the body lie ?
Jeanne Moreau is so feminine in this movie: as a young wife, as a mother, as a lover.
Rent it, you tube it,…
A dream, you will keep thinking about long after you have waken up…
